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Wednesday, August 10, 2016

In the remote Rocky
Mountains, lives depend on the Search & Rescue brotherhood. But in a place
this far off the map, trust is hard to come by and secrets can be murder…

George Holloway has spent his life alone, exploring the
treacherous beauty of the Colorado Rockies. He’s the best survival expert
Search and Rescue has, which makes him the obvious choice to lead Ellie Price
through deadly terrain to find her missing father. There’s just one
problem—Ellie’s everything George isn’t. She’s a city girl, charming,
gregarious, delicate, small. And when she looks up at him with those
big, dark eyes, he swears he would tear the world apart to keep her safe.

With a killer on the loose, he may have no choice.

Ellie’s determined to find her father no matter the cost.
But as she and her gorgeous mountain of a guide fight their way through an
unforgiving wilderness, they find themselves in the crosshairs of a dangerous
man in search of revenge. And they are now his prey…

“With hiking and camping, you mean? Yes. He took me with him a few
times when I was little, before… I’m just worried because he seemed so confused
and scared the last time we talked on the phone.”

“He’s most likely already there.” His finger brushed the spot on the
map where the cabin was located. “If not, he’ll have supplies.”

“That’s true.” Giving in to the need for contact, even if it was
with two sleeping bags between them, Ellie leaned against George’s side. She
ignored it when he went rigid, and soon she felt some of the tension leave him.
“Thanks for agreeing to be my guide. If Joseph had been the one to bring me out
here, I’d probably be running out into the storm just to get away from his
wandering hands.”

The stiffness returned to George’s body at the mention of Joseph.

“Do you not like him?” she asked, tilting her head to look at him.
His face was canted away from her, though, so she couldn’t see his expression.
“Is that why you decided to take me?”

There was a long pause before he spoke. “He’s good at what he does.
You would’ve been safe…in that way.” He put an odd emphasis on the last three
words.

“So, he wouldn’t have led me into an avalanche, but I might have
woken up in the night with him trying to squeeze into my sleeping bag?” Her
voice was teasing, her discomfort with Joseph diluted by distance and George’s
reassuring presence. When he turned his head to meet her eyes, though, his
expression was completely serious.

“The other search and rescue people, they talk.”

Unlike you, she wanted to say, but she
kept her mouth shut instead. George was saying more than he ever had before in
her presence, and she didn’t want to make him shut down again by cracking
jokes.

“I didn’t want him to take you.”

There was an entire story in his two sentences, and Ellie’s stomach
churned a little at the thought of being trapped in the tiny tent in a
snowstorm with Joseph rather than George. She wanted to think it would never
have been an option, but then she remembered her desperation at the fire
station two nights before.

Leaning her head against his shoulder, she said, “I’m glad it was
you.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the wind
shrieking outside the tent, until Ellie sighed and sat up straight.

When George looked at her in question, she admitted, “I need to pee,
but I really don’t want to go outside.”

He reached over to grab her coat. She let the sleeping bag fall to
her waist, and he held her jacket for her so she could slide her arms into the
sleeves. Taking a bracing breath, she shoved the sleeping bag off her legs and
yanked on her windproof pants, skipping the fleece middle layer.

As she fished the stuff sack containing her boots out of the bottom
of the mummy bag, she noticed that George was pulling on his own outer layers.

“You don’t have to come,” she protested, pulling on her boots and
wincing as they instantly pressed on her blistered spots. Dipping her head to
hide her grimace, she pulled on her bootlaces.

He frowned and covered her hands with his. “Not so tight. No wonder
your feet were cold.” Pushing her hands aside, he loosened the laces and then
tied them before repeating the process on her other boot.

“I thought they wouldn’t rub as much if they were tight.”

Shaking his head, he tugged on his own boots. “Not worth it. It
takes away the cushion of insulating air, plus it cuts off your circulation.”

“Besides, they gave me blisters anyway,” she said wryly, unzipping
the door. “And, seriously, I’ll be okay by myself. You don’t have to
supervise.” She dug a couple squares of camping toilet paper and a flashlight
out of her pack.

“I won’t watch you,” he huffed, and she turned to give him an
appalled look.

“I didn’t think you would—at least not until you said that.” His
cheeks had flushed above his beard, and Ellie had to bite back a smile. “I just
meant that there’s no reason for both of us to get cold.”

He grunted, his face still red. “I have to go, too. Move. You’re
letting in the cold air.”

Losing the battle against her grin, she faced forward to hide it.
“Yes, sir.”

Once she crawled out of the vestibule, the wind smacked the smile
right off her face.

“Don’t go far!” George bellowed over the wail of the wind.

It was cold, windy, and she just wanted to get back into her
sleeping bag, so Ellie didn’t take the time to point out the ridiculousness of
his warning. She barely stepped to the side of the tent before yanking down her
pants. Biting back a shriek as the cold wind slapped her bare parts, she
hurried as fast as she could. Her pants were scarcely back in place before she
dove for the tent entrance. George followed her in just seconds later.

“Do you have any wet wipes?” she asked through chattering teeth.
“I’m filthy.” That morning, she’d brushed her teeth and washed her hands and
face with some melted snow, but it would be nice to clean up more than once a
day. She added “washing her hands” to the list of things she’d never take for
granted again once she returned to civilization.

He pulled out an alcohol wipe from the first-aid kit and offered it
to her, but Ellie shook her head.

“Better to keep those in case of emergencies.” Her boot rubbed
against her heel as she removed it, making her wince. “Or blisters.”

With a nod, he returned it to the kit and started stripping off his
coat.

Once they were tucked back into their sleeping bags, Ellie turned
onto her side facing George and propped herself up on an elbow. “How about
Truth or Dare?”

His eyes widened with a look of sheer terror.

“That’s a no, huh?” When his look of panic didn’t change, she waved
her hand, dismissing the idea. “It would’ve been hard to think of dares we
could complete without leaving our sleeping bags, anyway. Okay, what about
Tic-Tac-Toe?”

***

George couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop looking at her, and
sleeping required closing his eyes. Therefore, sleep was not an option. He
didn’t mind. Once she’d collected her father and returned to the city, he’d
have plenty of dull, empty nights he could fill with sleep.

After several rounds of Tic-Tac-Toe and Hangman, she’d fallen asleep
while the flashlights were still lit. Despite the nagging voice in his head
telling him that he was wasting batteries, he left them on so he could see her.
His conscience lectured him, said that he was as bad as Acconcio, leering at
her as she slept.

A dark strand of hair had escaped her hood and lay against her
cheek. His hand twitched, needing to brush it away from her face, but he didn’t
touch her. That would be crossing the line, a line he already straddled by
watching her without her knowing.

She was just so pretty. When he’d first seen her sprawled in the
coffee shop parking lot, with her perfectly smooth and glossy sheet of hair and
impractical city clothes, he’d assumed she’d be snobbish. Then she’d met his
gaze, her eyes warm and round, shining with bits of green and gold and brown,
and he’d changed his mind. She wasn’t a snob, but a china doll, beautiful but
fragile. When he’d picked her up and carried her to the door, her lips had
rounded so they’d matched the shape of her eyes, making her look even more
doll-like.

He hadn’t wanted to lead her into the wilderness. Something that
delicate shouldn’t be exposed to cold and danger and exertion. When Acconcio
had pushed himself against her, though, grabbing her with that look on his
face, the one that reminded George of a well-fed house cat playing with a
mouse, he couldn’t let it happen. He couldn’t let the coyote lead the bunny
into the wild.

The fragile doll had surprised him, though. Although slow and
unfamiliar with things that were second nature to George, she’d listened and
helped and kept on walking, no matter what.

It worried him how much he liked taking care of her, feeding her and
doctoring her feet and making her tea. It gave him ideas he shouldn’t be
considering, like keeping her. The thought of having someone else living in his
house for the first time since his father died was as seductive as the feel of
her breath against his neck when she’d rolled into him the night before.

And she’d kissed him.

His breath left his lungs in a harsh exhale as he focused on her
lips, the lips that had touched his, leaving him frozen while every part of him
burned. As much as he reminded himself that it had been a joke, a tease, a way
to win the silly game she’d insisted they play, he still couldn’t shrink it
down to the right size in his own mind. It was huge, and important, and he’d
always remember those few, earth-shaking seconds.

How could he forget his first kiss?

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*

About Katie Ruggle:

When she’s not writing, Katie Ruggle rides horses, shoots
guns, and travels to warm places where she can scuba dive. A graduate of the
police academy, Katie received her ice-rescue certification and can attest that
the reservoirs in the Colorado mountains really are that cold. While she still
misses her off-grid, solar- and wind-powered house in the Rocky Mountains, she
now lives in Rochester, Minnesota, near her family.